Herringbone Tables

This is a project that I started in October 2013 and finally finished June 2014. I was half way finished and didn’t know what I wanted the bottom shelves and bottom legs to look like. So I put them on a shelf for about 3 months and worked on some other projects until I finally pictured the design I was looking for in my head. Then I pulled them off the shelf and went back to work. I built a total of 1 coffee table and 4 end tables.

I used red oak, cherry, and walnut for the wood species. I used a jig to cut all of the little slats to the exact same size. If the sizes were slightly different then the layout would not work. I then glued them all down to aa oak plywood substrate. For the table aprons I laminated walnut onto cherry and planed the walnut down to about 3/16” so when I cut the rosettes, the cherry would show through the walnut.

I was unsure about what finish to use and I decided to use Aqua Coat brand finish found at aquacoat.com. I used 2 coats of their sanding sealer, 4 coats of wood grain filler, another 2 coats of sanding sealer, then 10 coats of commercial table top finish. The table top finish is a poly-acrylic blend with a catalyst to make it super hard. Then I sanded the tops only with 1000, 2000, 3000, and 5000 sandpaper. Then I buffed the finish with a buffer and swirl remover. Then I topped it with a coat of Turtle Wax. The tops are like a sheet of glass.

If anyone is interested in building these tables then message me. I am thinking about marketing step by step plans with many pictures and tamplates